Review Summary: There will never be an album like this again
I struggled for a solid hour to think of how to properly open this review. How do you succinctly introduce your thoughts on an album in a genre you don’t often listen to, in a headspace you haven’t found yourself in in a while, in an era unprecedented, that managed to touch you on a level few albums ever have? Well, outside of that question, it can start with this: the early 2020s have unquestionably been defined by harming and healing, more so than almost any year before that I can recall. It’s been a rollercoaster of traumatic lows and stellar-level highs, of personal growth and personal regression in equal measure. It is little more than a whirlwind, sweeping all of us along for the ride.
And if I had to put a soundtrack to it, I would probably pick
Trisagion.
“We are watching the disintegration of our past-held moral structures in real time. The paradigms of what we held as unshakeable, unquestionable truth be brought to the ground.” – Joseph Hawker, Ethereal Shroud
Perhaps it’s my own growing cynicism and despair that has permeated the New ‘20s that allowed me to connect so deeply with what is so unquestionably a personal album. Ethereal Shroud lays bare the way they view the world with such bold-faced anger that you almost feel like you’re listening to private thoughts that should never be voiced, or only be voiced amidst the privacy of your loved ones, or a trusted therapist. Of course, the delivery helps here. Black metal vocals have never been the most peaceful sounding, after all, and Hawker’s shrieks and roars over the thunderous guitars and drums only serve to enhance that growing feeling of dread and despair that permeates half of this record.
“To what end was I made this way/If my nature is a transgression?”
This dread and despair is directed outward and inward in equal measure. The expansive opener “Chasmal Fires” is a good example of this, directing hatred towards the institutions that condemn, that place challenges too unfair to surmount, who would condemn kindness and empathy, but equally acknowledging that the singer themselves has fallen into despair as a result, hating that they are capable of such hate in the first place. And this isn’t even getting into the heartbreaking closer “Astral Mariner”, which I can only describe as angry depression put to music, the baring of a tortured soul worn down by the world’s cruelty.
“I am stronger than I was years before/From when I knelt before you.”
And yet, with pain, there must also be healing at some point in the future. And despite the doom and gloom I have opined for most of this review,
Trisagion is shockingly empowering and uplifting when it wants to be. “Discarnate” was described by Hawker as an “’overcoming your demons’ kind of song”, and it succeeds brilliantly, a call to arms to all the disenfranchised and hopeless, a call to rise against those who made us this way. “Chasmal Fires”, for all of its anger, condemns the institutions it rages against with an almost dismissive nature: “Your archaism dies this day/You are but the shadow of a lie/Feeble and brittle like silence”. If half of this album soundtracks the 2020s’ most depressing elements, the other half is the uplifting, the measures of human decency and triumph, the heal that inevitably follows the hurt.
“We are one/You are nothing”
You might notice that, outside of a brief mention, I have not talked much about the music presented here. The reasons are twofold: one is simply that I have little experience with black metal, and an admittedly narrow-minded frame of reference for the genre. The other is simply that I don’t know how to describe the way the music sits with you, how fucking
massive this album sounds, how every element is perfectly placed to aid in the songs’ progressions, unfolding in what I can only properly describe as a black metal odyssey. Violas sing above vicious guitars and pummeling drums, beauty juxtaposed with dark, jagged edges. “Chasmal Fires” features a gorgeous female vocal passage that perfectly bridges the track’s halves. The music is less a standalone, and more of a perfect complement to the lyrics and themes. One does not exist without the other, and they form a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.
“I longed for the same as you/But I'm at peace now”
Perhaps it’s the genuineness of this album that has allowed me to break past my usual ambivalence surrounding the black metal genre. Perhaps it’s the way that such a personal album can be delivered in such an honest, open way that I can connect with it, delve into it, listen to it and truly hear what it’s trying to say. I can count the number of albums I would consider flawless on two hands, and I would only need a single to count the albums that truly affected me on an emotional level.
Trisagion, quite handily, manages to find itself among both of those precious few albums. It is, in every respect, a masterpiece and magnum opus, a hymn of hate, and the love and justice that will ultimately conquer it. It is the way Joseph Hawker views the world. It is the way I view the world. It is love. It is fear. It is hurt. It is healing. It is perfection.
